Shearing World championships qualifying

January 13, 2016

Shearing World championships qualifying

The buildup to the World shearing and woolhandling championships in Invercargill next year gets a kick-start when almost 50 of the top hopefuls start a tough New Zealand team selection series in a big week in Southland shearing sports this week.

The first two rounds will be at Lumsden’s Northern Southland Community Shears on Friday and the Winton show’s Southland Shears and national crossbred lambshearing championships on Saturday.

But the final, with the selection of just two machine shearers and two woolhandlers, won’t take place until the Canterbury Show in November. A blade shearing series is being held separately.

Shearing Sports New Zealand chairman Sir David Fagan said the large entry of shearers and woolhandlers sets the scene for what he hopes will be a future-leading Golden Shears World Championships Southland 2017 in the ILT Stadium on February 9-11 next year.

Among the 23 shearers entered for the qualifying series are three who have won World titles, including defending individual champion Rowland Smith and 2010 winner Cam Ferguson, who at the start of this week hadn’t shorn a sheep in more than three months since breaking a leg at touch football.

But, with 12 from the North Island and 11 from the South, they don’t include five-times individual champion and seven-times teams title winner Sir David, recently retired from competition and missing from World championship contention for only the third time in the 17 championships which will have been held since the first in 1977.

The 24 woolhandlers are an even split of North and South Island competitors, with 2008 champion Sheree Alabaster and 2012 winner Joel Henare entered, along with two others who have won World teams titles.

“There’s obviously a lot of interest and it won’t be easy,” Sir David said. “There are seven shows in this series – six qualifying rounds and then the final. If they’re really going for it, they have to compete in all of them, and only two shearers and two woolhandlers will be chosen from these events to represent New Zealand in the ILT Stadium in 13 months’ time.”

ENDS

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